OK, background first. This was an anniversary trip for my husband (37) and I (34) and our first ever cruise. We had no idea what to expect, and tried to keep an open mind. In return? We had a whole lot of FUN.

Embarkation - We're from Dallas, so we drove down the night before. Stayed at the Beachcomber Inn because it was cheap and had free cruise parking. It was decent, clean and had a really uncomfortable bed. Everything we expected for under $100! Woke up the next morning and took a taxi to the ship around 10:30. ($20 with tip) A porter ran right up to us and got our bags. Were in the port building by 11:00 and through to the seated waiting area by 11:30. No lines, and we were in the first group to get called onto the ship. Took a quick picture and were sent up for lunch. Here's where listening to the cruise critic "experts" let us down a little. Around 1:00 we thought we would try and 'peek' at our room. Maybe the steward would let us drop off our bags? Or we could at least see where it was? (we had an OV guarantee that had been assigned that morning, we had no clue where it was!) Nope, the hallway doors were shut and we weren't allowed to even walk down them. OK... cool. We'll check out our dining room seating. Again, negative. The doors were closed tight, they weren't letting anybody in. "Go up to deck nine and eat!" They kept saying. I was ready to POP, LOL! So we got a bucket of beer ($14 for cans when in port, kind of interesting) and chilled a while longer. All in all? Very smooth, not at all painful. We did have our funpass and passports, don't know if that made a difference, but like I said, no wait, no lines. We got to our room (1388) and it was perfect. Plenty of room, a very friendly steward named Lucky and one more slight 'cruise critic expert' disappointment. He's not allowed to remove the minibar contents, but did shuffle around all the cans to the bottom so I could put my Pepsi on top. Which worked great! Our luggage was at the door ASAP, and we got unpacked. Day 1 at sea - We pretty much just got use to everything. We had a 4-top table at dinner with a great couple, figured out where the pizza was, blah, blah, blah. The Captain got on the loudspeaker and broke the news to us that we were scheduled to arrive in Jamaica the same day as Gustav! Yay. So everything was changed up. We would stop in Grand Cayman first, Cozumel second, and then beautiful downtown PROGRESSO last. (more on that later)

Day 2 at sea - We kind of decided we might be port people rather than ship people. We had seen some shows, eaten a LOT of food, swam, sunned, drank way too much, all kinds of good stuff. And it was nice, really. But we wanted OFF the ship by then. Read more